


War is Over

by Tarlan



Series: Seasonal [3]
Category: The X-Files, The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 14:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recent events had given Mulder the last pieces of information he needed. All he had to do now was hand this over to the Resistance, and wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War is Over

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the end of the final movie.  
> Written for the Nick Lea 2013 eZine

In the last days of the Colonist war, Mulder had only one option left open to him - to speak to Alex. He needed to tell him what he had discovered and let the other man decide what to do about it. He just hoped that, by telling Alex, he was not leading him into unnecessary danger.

Since going on the run himself, Mulder had realized how sensible it had been for Krycek to remain outside of the FBI for all these years. It had given Alex the freedom to act without having to file reports or explain his actions to a superior. Ironically, Mulder had learned to appreciate the same freedom even if it was from a small room in Scully's house in the middle of nowhere.

Scully was gone now, having decided that she wanted a normal life while it still existed. They had both lost so much over the years, including a child that, genetically, was both of theirs but who had not been conceived naturally. That was not to say he and Dana hadn't found a measure of comfort in each other's arms, especially over the last few years, but it was a relationship built on a deep and abiding love that came from facing danger together, for being there for each other; it wasn't the same as the way he felt for Alex.

He would give his life for Dana... but he would give his soul for Alex.

Mulder couldn't blame her for wanting some semblance of normalcy after all they had been through, and this latest discovery was the proverbial ' _last straw_ ' in her eyes. She had met someone at the hospital where she worked and Mulder had checked the guy out, and found him clean. Just a normal man who loved her, and she deserved a normal life. She had deserved a normal Christmas, and a happy future, and Mulder knew that it couldn't be with him.

He would have Alex... one day.

Mulder remembered the promise they had made in Berlin all those years ago.

_There's no guarantee that either of us will still be standing when this is over but I promise you, if we are, then I will come._

Most believed Alex was dead; killed in an underground garage with a neatly placed bullet through the center of his forehead by Skinner. Mulder hadn't anticipated Skinner killing Alex outright. He thought Skinner was so by-the-book that he would drag Alex away and have him locked up. The plan had been for the clone to get himself killed in prison, and this death would allow the real Alex Krycek even greater freedom to infiltrate the last of the Colonist sympathizers. Seeing Skinner gun down Alex had almost blown the whole deception apart because even knowing it was a clone had still made it difficult for Mulder to watch and then act as if he really didn't care.

In truth, he cared too much.

Over the years they had figured out a system; a way to get in contact with each other but only under the most dire of circumstances. Other meetings were unexpected reunions - usually following a cryptic message from the Lone Gunmen that led to a Alex, until they died saving the planet from a lethal pathogen. Mulder smiled as he recalled the last time he and Alex met, just a few days before Christmas a year earlier. They had spent a whole day in bed in a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere, watching pay-per-view movies and drinking ice-cold vodka. Not the cheap stuff either. Mulder had grown to love the taste of vodka on Alex's lips almost as much as he loved the taste of his skin as he bit and licked a path down the length of Alex's firm body.

The last time he had seen Alex he had teased him for the silver hairs appearing at his temples, shining against the mahogany, even though his own hair had amassed a few gray hairs too. Alex had still looked good though, with his pale skin glowing in the moonlight filtering through the poorly drawn curtains.

Moonlight and vodka - it seemed to be a recurring theme for them since that first time one Christmas Eve, so many years ago.

Mulder sent out the encrypted message with all the information he had gathered, and a request to meet up, aware that he might have to wait a few days before he received a reply with a cryptic set of coordinates. He just hoped Alex wouldn't do anything stupid with this information, and get himself killed when they were so close to finishing this war.

A day passed by slowly and then another, and just when Mulder was starting to lose patience out of concern for Alex, he heard a creak of the loose board in the floor above the hidden basement where Mulder kept all his biggest secrets hidden. Slowly Mulder pulled out his gun and clicked off the safety. Knowing what to listen for, he heard the door open with the tiniest of squeaks from one hinge, and then soft footfalls on the wooden steps leading down, with the eight step creaking just enough to give away the person's location. Whoever it was, they paused just outside the door to the basement room and Mulder frowned when he heard a shuffling and saw a piece of paper slide under the door. The words were written in a familiar hand, in bold dark letters.

_War is over, Let's stop all the fight._

Mulder grinned in disbelief. "John Lennon lyrics?"

The door knob turned and the door swung open, revealing the man who had captured his soul and held on tight so long ago. Alex had barely changed since last Christmas, perhaps with a few more lines etched on his tired face and a few more distinguishing gray hairs at his temple. On closer observation, Mulder could see the edge of a white bandage peeking out just above the collar bone.

"It's over, Mulder," he whispered. "We won. Humanity won."

"Over?"

It seemed too hard to believe after all these years of trying to uncover the truth and defeat the alien colonists. The war had ended without fanfare, and possibly without more than a passing note on a slow news day about some unusual disturbance in some far off land. The greatest threat to mankind since the last near-miss from a rogue asteroid had died in the same silence in which it had been waged for decades, with only a few scarred individuals to note its end.

"The information you sent... it pinpointed the last of the colonist ships. There won't be any more. It's over, Mulder."

He moved in closer as he spoke and as soon as he was close enough, Mulder flicked on the safety automatically and dropped his gun on the desk before reaching for Alex. He pulled him in tight, relishing the familiar smell of leather and cheap, unbranded soap, and beneath that the scent of Alex's warm skin.

Mulder buried his face into the side of Alex's neck and breathed in deeply, letting the familiar scent wash over him as he held on tight to Alex. He felt one arm wrap around him just as firmly while the prosthetic limb pressed against his side awkwardly and yet in a strangely familiar way too. When he moved his head a fraction, it was to meet Alex's lips and lose himself in a kiss, deep and hungry, starved for this moment.

Somehow they made it back upstairs, to the bed that Mulder had shared with Dana occasionally, but her scent had long left the sheets. Not that Alex would have cared if the sheets had still been warm from her lying there. After all these years he knew where he stood in Mulder's heart, knew that he and Mulder belonged together.

Mulder needed to see Alex; needed to see all of him to prove if only to himself that Alex was alive and relatively whole - and still only missing the one limb. He snorted at the thought, gaining a bemused look from Alex as Mulder slowly unwrapped his late Christmas gift. He pushed Alex back onto the bed and slowly divested him of his clothing, worshiping every inch of revealed skin with touch and taste until Alex was lying naked beneath him. He fingered the edge of the bandage.

"Just a flesh wound."

It took only seconds for Mulder to pull off his own sweats and t-shirt. He sighed in pleasure as he crawled onto the bed and pressed his body against the length of Alex, skin-to-skin, lying half on top of Alex with one leg pinning Alex down. They kissed again, languidly, as if suddenly aware that they had all the time in the world now.

The war was over, and Alex was here, just as he had promised in Berlin.

Looking into the wide-spaced, green eyes, darkened with desire, Mulder could see the exhaustion lurking there from years of sleeping with one eye open, always having to remain alert for danger.

"Go to sleep," he ordered, despite the desire that thrummed through them both. "I'll still be here tomorrow." And every morning after that, he promised silently.

Alex was asleep in seconds, almost between one breath and the next, and Mulder watched over him for a time, his eidetic memory noting every new line, every new scar, every new silver hair at his temple.

For the first time he could count on having a tomorrow with this man, and a day after that.

With a smile, Mulder closed his own eyes and let Alex's soft breathing draw him into sleep too.

The war was over, and his covert soldier of the Resistance had come home.

END


End file.
